Spanish elections and politics

[🦀🎂🦀🎂]

Pretty funny how much the PSOE's strategy of hyping up Vox to create discord in the right have backfired huge on them. Feel bad for Sanchez, but glad the barons will end up in prison.

[Former President tack50]

I don't think any of the barons are going to prison any time soon. PSOE is corrupt but most current officials outside Andalucia seem to be clean. Susana Diaz herself is probably clean though her inner circle probably isn't.

Only "barons" that are going to prison are Jose Antonio Griñán and Manuel Chaves (the 2 predecessors to Susana Díaz as Andalusian premier), both for the ERE scandal.

Also, we just got 2 regional polls for Navarra. For some reason that community seems to be getting a lot of polling.

Gizkaer for Euskal Irrati Telebista (the Basque regional government's TV station)





PP right at the 3% hurdle, though they give them 0 seats instead of something like 0-1.

Navarrómetro (apparently the regional equivalent to the nation wide CIS)





I certainly trust the first poll more than the 2nd one (much more reliable), even if it might have a pro-GBai bias (GBai works somewhat as the Navarra brand of PNV, but more left wing?).

In any case, I still think the Navarra government is lean GBai. UPN has a shot of coming back, but I wouldn't count on it.

[Velasco]

Geroa Bai is a coalition acting in Navarre including PNV, Zabaltzen and Atarrabia Taldea. The two latter are centre-left or left-wing Basque nationalist parties. The leader of Zabaltzen is premier Uxue Barkos, who is the most important and charismatic figure of Geroa Bai. I would challenge the notion of GBai as the brand of PNV in Navarre,  since this party never had electoral success in the region running in its own. Batasuna, EA or Aralar (currently part of EH Bildu) were more relevant in Navarre than PNV. I think GBai represents a more moderate version of Basque nationalism than EH Bildu and its success relies in good measure on Uxue Barkos.

I suspect that the role of Cs in the ongoing negotiation yo conform the Abdalusian government will be a source of amusement. Oranges are already having a hard time trying to deny the obvious: PP and Cs need the support of the far right to govern. This is not a major problem for the PP, apparently. Vox leaders say they don't want posts in government,  but they want to be heard and their vote is not for free. It seems that Vox won't tolerate to be ignored by Cs. I wonder what are going to do Manuel Valls or Guy Verhofstadt  

Are PP, Cs and Vox conforming an informal right wing nationalist block playing the music of José Maria Aznar, as some analysts suggest?

[Velasco]

New left wing party with former judge Baltasar Garzón and former IU leader Gaspar Llamazares as main figures could contest next EP, regional and local elections. The party is created from a platform of IU critics and left-wing disenchanted called Actúa ("Act")

https://www.lavanguardia.com/politica/20181215/453558362197/llamazares-garzon-actua-nueva-formacion-elecciones.html?utm_source=facebook&utm_medium=social&utm_content=politica&utm_campaign=lv&fbclid=IwAR1bYTFgysHjmgoqKdqc45Q71alKOEzofQ6Bzmo09jSFcO2S0hp9Jy_5Ryw

Former IU leaders Gaspar Llamazares and Cayo Lara, the IU mayor of Zamora and other critics signed a document criticizing IU and Podemos leaderships shortly after the Andalusian elections. They accused Alberto Garzón and Pablo Iglesias of having more interest in surpassing PSOE as the main force in the left than building a progressive majority.

[Oryxslayer]

New left wing party with former judge Baltasar Garzón and former IU leader Gaspar Llamazares as main figures could contest next EP, regional and local elections. The party is created from a platform of IU critics and left-wing disenchanted called Actúa ("Act")

https://www.lavanguardia.com/politica/20181215/453558362197/llamazares-garzon-actua-nueva-formacion-elecciones.html?utm_source=facebook&utm_medium=social&utm_content=politica&utm_campaign=lv&fbclid=IwAR1bYTFgysHjmgoqKdqc45Q71alKOEzofQ6Bzmo09jSFcO2S0hp9Jy_5Ryw

Former IU leaders Gaspar Llamazares and Cayo Lara, the IU mayor of Zamora and other critics signed a document criticizing IU and Podemos leaderships shortly after the Andalusian elections. They accused Alberto Garzón and Pablo Iglesias of having more interest in surpassing PSOE as the main force in the left than building a progressive majority.

Do we think there is enough time until new elections are called for these guys to go anywhere or impact the results, or is the timeframe too soon?

[Velasco]

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Personally I'm rather sceptic about the electoral viability of this party. I admit that I was totally wrong about the impact of Vox (it was a last minute surge in good measure). Back in the day very few predicted the impact of Podemos in the 2014 EP rlections. Said this, I think that people like Llamazares or the former judge Garzón can hardly represent a fresh alternative. I think that Gaspar Llamazares is not a bad guy, but... Anyway winning seats in the EP parliament is relatively easy due to the proportional system, or having some councilors or even members of regional parliaments (Llamazares was the IU candidate in Asturias). These guys are affiliated to the European 'party' launched by Yannis Varoufakis.

This project is a symptom of dissension in the left (nothing new), but not all if the IU and Podemos critics will join Actúa.  For instance Iñigo Errejon, the leader of a faction in Podemos and candidate in the region of Madrid. He says openly that his vision and strategy are different from those of Pablo Iglesias,  but he is one of the founders of Podemos and won't leave. Errejon advocates to dispute the idea of Spain and the national emblems to the right. This doesn't imply mimicking the Vox jingoism as the PP does, but proposing another concept of patriotism and giving people some certainties...

https://ctxt.es/es/20181212/Politica/23449/íñigo-Errejón-entrevista-Comunidad-de-Madrid-pacto-Gabilondo-símbolos-nacionales.htm

Errejon thinks that creating "anti-fascist" fronts is not a good strategy to counter the rise of the far right, because Vox is the symptom and not the illness. I tend to agree with this point of view.

On the opposite side, veteran IU leaders Julio Anguita and Manolo Monereo (currently Podemos deputy and very influential for Pablo Iglesias) say that the success of Salvini in Italy is due to the failure of the left and even praise his "social policies",  as well as his defence of  "popular sovereignty" and "national independence". In my opinion this is going way too far (I don't think Pablo Iglesias sanctions this point of view, thankfully)...

[Former President tack50]

Honestly, the big impact if it stands alone (instead of going into coalition with Podemos and/or IU), would be 2:

1: Will they get seats in the EU parliamentary election? It's quite easy to get one, they'd need roughly 1.5-1.6% of the vote. If they get even 1 seat that will give them some traction

2: If they choose to contest regional elections, how well will they do in Asturias? (the home region of Llamazares, I'll assume he runs under Actua and not IU if he runs for reelection, he is still IU-Asturias regional party leader after all).

Still, I can't really see them getting much more than say, 2.5% of the vote and 1 seat.

[BigSerg]

Lol, three new polls have come out and they are all horrible for the left

[BigSerg]

El confidencial

Psoe25.8%
Cs:20%
PP:19.6%
UP:15.5%
Vox:8%

PP, Vox, Cs= 48%
Psoe, UP= 41%

La razon

Psoe: 24.8%
Cs:18%
PP:24.4%
UP:17.2%
Vox:8.7%

Vox, cs pp=51.1%
Psoe, UP=42%
Psoe,UP,Others:49%

ABC

Psoe:24.2%
Cs:20.7%
PP:20.5%
UP:14.2%
Vox:8.7%

PP, Cs, Vox=49.9%


30% of the respondents answered that the unit of Spain was their number one priority when voting


In pp, cs and vox was the number one priority of their voters

[SPQR]

That seems a pretty huge bump for Vox...?

[Oryxslayer]

That seems a pretty huge bump for Vox...?

It appears to be mostly coming from PP/PSOE rather then C's which is interesting.

[BigSerg]

Other poll

El español

Psoe:25.5%
PP:21.6%
Cs:19%
UP:17.8%
Vox:8.5%

Vox,pp, cs=49.1%

This poll is the only one that does not give an absolute majority to the right. Quite strange since the percentage of right-wing votes largely wins to the left

[Former President tack50]

Other poll

El español

Psoe:25.5%
PP:21.6%
Cs:19%
UP:17.8%
Vox:8.5%

Vox,pp, cs=49.1%

This poll is the only one that does not give an absolute majority to the right. Quite strange since the percentage of right-wing votes largely wins to the left

To be fair, considering the percentages for each party I imagine Vox is now acting partially as a spoiler for the right, kind of what IU traditionally did for the left. They are getting 9%, but with that percentage they are probably getting around 20 seats.

The best example I can put is the 1996 election, where Aznar became PM even though the combined right was defeated by the combined left 39-48. Then again that was in an era where PP-nationalist deals weren't exactly impossible, with Aznar "speaking Catalan behind closed doors".

But even if you add CiU and PNV (or CC) to the right's total it still loses 45-48.

For another, more recient example, in the 2015 general election the combined left (PSOE+Podemos+IU) beat the combined right (PP+Cs) 46-43, but the combined right got slightly more seats (163 for PP+Cs; 161 for PSOE+Podemos+IU)

[Former President tack50]

That seems a pretty huge bump for Vox...?

To be honest, considering the Andalusian election results, it might actually be too low! Then again I don't think an "even swing" would be accurate, the Andalusian election also had particular circumstances.

Still, I'd say Vox is probably just shy of double digits at this point.

[Former President tack50]

This is something I saw today on the news that I found interesting.

Apparently the association of journalists covering parliamentary activity gave prizes to congressmen (also senators and MEPs) on the following categories.

Best speaker (probably the most important one): Ana Oramas (CC)
Runner ups: Joan Tardá (ERC), Albert Rivera (Cs), Pablo Iglesias (Podemos)

Best government critic: Pablo Casado (PP)
Runner-ups: Rafael Hernándo (PP), Albert Rivera (Cs), Beatriz Escudero (PP)

Best opposition critic: Carmen Calvo (Deputy Prime Minister, PSOE)
Runner-ups: Pedro Sánchez (Prime Minister, PSOE); María Jesús Montero (Treasury Minister, PSOE), Aitor Esteban (PNV)

Best press relations: María Jesús Montero (Treasury Minister, PSOE)
Runner ups: Jose Manuel Villegas (Cs), Ione Belarra (UP), Carles Campuzano (PDECat)

Best press critic: Adriana Lastra (PSOE)
Runner ups: Dolors Montserrat (PP), Rafael Mayoral (UP), Carles Mulet (Compromís)

Most active congressman: Yolanda Díaz (UP)
Runner ups: María Jesús Moro (PP), Oskar Matute (EH Bildu), Ángeles Álvarez (PSOE)

Best internet presence: Melisa Rodríguez (Cs)
Runner ups: Gabriel Rufián (ERC), Ignacio Cosidó (PP), Pablo Iglesias (UP)

Best revelation congressman: Ione Belarra (UP)
Runner ups: Teodoro García Egea (PP), Marta Sorlí (Compromís), Guillermo Díaz (Cs)

1 million euro parliamentary question: Carlos Floriano Corrales (PP)

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Runner ups: Ignasi Candela Serna (Compromís) (kinda hard to translate I'd say)

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Dolors Montserrat (PP):

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Best senator: Ander Gil (PSOE)
Runner ups: Ignacio Cosidó (PP), Maribel Mora (Podemos), Jon Iñarritu (EH Bildu)

Best revelation senator: Luis Aznar (PP)
Runner ups: Lorena Roldán (Cs), María José López Santana (NCa) Esther Muñoz (PP)

Best European Parliament congressman: Iratxe García (PSOE)
Runner ups: Javier Nart (Ciudadanos), Miguel Urbán (Podemos), Marina Albiol (IU)

http://www.periodistasparlamentarios.org/?p=4928

Interestingly enough, Santa Cruz de Tenerife's delegation actually saw 2 prizes (out of 7 MPs!). Come to think about it, Santa Cruz de Tenerife has some of the best congressmen IMO. Then again that might bias since I see them a lot on regional TV.

I have to say I generally agree with the prizes (at least for the politicians I know). Ana Oramas, even though I hate her party regionally, is probably one of the better speakers in Congress. Small regionalist parties often have good speakers, back in the 00s the tiny Aragonese Chunta had former singer Jose Antonio Labordeta. And of course the Cantabrian Regionalist Party has Revilla as leader, also very good speaker (albeit quite populist).

[Velasco]

Pedro Sánchez and the Catalan premier Quim Torra are meeting in Barcelona right now.

Tomorrow Pedro Sánchez will chair a meeting of the Council of Ministers, while pro-independence activists will protest in the streets.  The cabinet meeting in Barcelona was scheduled months ago. However recent developments contributed to escalate tension, particularly some ststements made by premier Torra about the "Slovenian path to independence". There was fear of violent incidents at protests tomorrow leading to an abrupt end of the legislature. There have been calls to calm the situation. The meeting between Sánchez and Torra might be a step in deescalation...

Meanwhile, the jailed Catalan leaders on hunger strike cakked off

https://elpais.com/elpais/2018/12/20/inenglish/1545305359_830896.html

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A group of Catalan politicians including fuve former premiers released yesterday an open letter calling the men to cease the protest, in order to protect their lives and health; ensuring their "optimum participation" in the ongoing trials and in the future of the country.

[Velasco]

The cabinet meeting was regarded "positive" despite protests and road blocks

https://elpais.com/elpais/2018/12/21/inenglish/1545412397_365710.html

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PP, Cs and Madrid conservative media have a radically different narrative. Any attempt of dialogue is described as treason, surrender or "humiliation". The Spanish Right is currently split in three parties. They have in common a tough stance against separatists. They also have in common the influence of former PM José María Aznar, who is very clear in what regards the "secessionist challenge". PP and Cs want the immediate implementation of article 155 (direct rule, suspension of regional autonomy) for an indefinite period. Some people think the constitutionality of such a drastic measure is dubious. Other people think that implementing article 155 without a clear reason, aside "the complete defeat of separatism" (Vox), would represent a democratic involution. No dialogue. No surrender. Ulster.

[Former President tack50]

Apparently PP and Cs have reached a deal in Andalucia. However, that deal also apparently excluded Vox, who is now claiming that they will vote against their deal.

https://www.eldiario.es/andalucia/PP-Cs-impuestos-Gobierno-plataforma_0_848665559.html

https://www.eldiario.es/andalucia/Vox-excluir-PSOE-PP-Ciudadanos-Gobierno_0_848665672.html

If that happens, a 2 month countdown from the investiture vote will start. If there's no premier by then there will be a 2nd regional election (probably some time around April?), just like in 2015-2016 but at a regional scale.

[Velasco]

Euskobarometro poll for the Basque Parliament

EAJ-PNV 38.3% 31 seats (+3)
EH Bildu 23.1% 18 seats (=)
PSE-EE  13.5% 11 seats (+2)
Elkarrekin Podemos 10 3%  7 seats (-4)
PP 8.2% 7 seats (-2)
Cs 3% 1 seat (+1)

Sample size: 1200
Fieldwork: October 15 to November 9

[Former President tack50]

While it's not rare to find polls for local elections on certain municipalities, it is indeed rare to find polls for local elections nationally. However ABC seems to have done one. Here are its results

https://www.abc.es/espana/abci-pp-ciudadanos-y-superan-cuatro-puntos-izquierda-elecciones-municipales-201812262307_noticia.html

Popular vote:



Councillors in the 52 provincial capitals



Chances of a PP+Cs+Vox majority by provincial capital



About the last two, they are mostly based on an "even swing" model from 2015 so they can and will be inaccurate, particularly in cases of small towns with popular left wing incumbents.

If we give the left every town in brown or red, that would be 20 provincial capitals. However, a bad sign would be that of those 20 provincial capitals, a whopping 14 would be located in places with some sort of nationalist or regionalist movement, where the left+regional right basically run up the score (Galicia, Basque Country, Navarra, Catalonia, Canary Islands)

And of the few outside those regions, none of the 6 would be particularly large towns, with only Cádiz being above 100 000 people.

As for the popular vote, everything seems low but that's because of local parties. The PP-PSOE difference seems in line with most local elections thus far, all elections since 1999 have ended in virtual ties except for 2011.

[Former President tack50]

Today was the first session of the newly elected parliament of Andalucia. There had been a lot of negotiations to get the "parliament table" (which basically regulates parliamentary procedures and what gets and doesn't get a vote).

In the end there was a deal orchestrated by Cs so everyone got at least 1 seat (there are 7). However, AA dropped out of the deal last minute in order to "not soften the image of the far right".

In the end, though a PP-Cs-Vox deal Marta Bosquet (Cs) was elected parliament president (first Cs parliament president), and it's expected that eventually there will be a right wing deal.

The full composition of the "parliament table" ended up as:

2 PSOE
2 PP
2 Cs
1 Vox

https://www.elmundo.es/andalucia/2018/12/27/5c24b010fdddff18328b469b.html

So there's a right wing majority, a PP-Cs majority and a PSOE-Cs majority. IMO this distribution is unfair, Cs should have 1 less member and AA one more. But then again that's what AA gets for dropping out I guess. Then again it seems that if AA hadn't dropped out maybe their seat would come from PSOE and not Cs so maybe it wasn't a bad idea after all

[Velasco]

PP and Cs closed a deal on Wednesday to take control of the speaker's committee in the Andalusian parliament. as well as they sealed a 90 point deal with measures to govern the southern region. As a result, Juan Manuel Moreno (PP) is the likely next premier while Marta Bosquet (Cs) is the new speaker with the support of PP, Cs and Vox. The far-right party is demanding to negotiate the points of the deal between PP and Cs in order to vote the Moreno's investiture, while the oranges oppose to any modification. Anyway I suspect they are acting.

https://elpais.com/elpais/2018/12/27/inenglish/1545899006_561835.html

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The bolded sentence is not totally correct. A far-right party called Fuerza Nueva (FN) led by a certain Blas Piñar won a seat in the 1979 general elections. There are differences between FN and Vox. The latter was the party of the hardcore Francoists (they were called "the bunker"), while the Manuel Fraga's AP (currently PP) represented by that time a conservative vote ("sociological Francoism") somewhat nostalgic of the old regime but seeking to adapt to the new times. Vox is a radical split of PP which advocates a extremely tough stance on the territorial crisis and with strong affinity with the French FN (currently RN) on immigration and islamophobia, but not on economics (FN/RN is protectionist and Vox neoliberal). In all likelihood there is some Franco nostalgia in Vox (a candidate for Málaga told a journalist that Franco's regime was not a dictatorship), but obviously the Vox phenomenon doesn't rely on them.

[Lumine]

I must say, it is rather interesting how Franco didn't manage to hold onto significant popular support after death, and how much openly Francoist parties failed despite the survival of some vague notions of sociological Francoism in AP/PP. There's plently of examples of post-dictatorship democracies in which parties nostalgical of a given regime, its leader or his policies have managed to survive and even garner significant support, and it's fascinating to see Spain fully reversed that potential trend.

[Velasco]

I must say, it is rather interesting how Franco didn't manage to hold onto significant popular support after death, and how much openly Francoist parties failed despite the survival of some vague notions of sociological Francoism in AP/PP. There's plently of examples of post-dictatorship democracies in which parties nostalgical of a given regime, its leader or his policies have managed to survive and even garner significant support, and it's fascinating to see Spain fully reversed that potential trend.

Possibly this is related to the particular circumstances of that historical period, after the death of Franco. On the one hand there is the trauma of the Spanish Civil War and the fear of another conflict, which was shared by people on the left and the right. On the other hand, there was a huge thirst of modernity in Spain that became increasingly evident in the 60s and the 70s. I guess both factors favoured the reformist elements of the regime (Afolfo Suárez and part of the UCD leadership), as well as favoured pact over rupture on the left. As for the second factor, modernity was associated with democracy and EU integration (this explains why Spain is still comparatively more pro EU than other countries). There was a strong "sociological Francoism", but a majority of these conservative elements was in favour of a "controlled" transition. The violent far right elements were a minority, but they were quite visible (Atocha killing in 1977, coup attempt in 1981). Only the collapse of the UCD allowed Manuel Fraga to become the leader of the opposition in 1982, but he was unable to break the so called 'Fraga's ceiling' due to his close association to the old regime. Fraga had to give way to a younger generation and retreat to his stronghold in Galicia...

[Former President tack50]

For what is worth, you could argue that the "Jose María Ruiz Mateos Electoral Group" was also sort of a far right party, they ran on "Spain for the Spanish, jobs for everybody" and had an anti-EU campaign of sorts (back in the 80s and 90s!)

https://www.lasexta.com/programas/el-objetivo/noticias/asi-era-el-populismo-de-ruiz-mateos-que-me-voteis-leches-a-ver-si-os-enterais_20161120583226140cf24c3ff69be60c.html

Ruiz Mateos was somewhat more popular than Blas Piñar as well.

Though I think Ruiz Mateos wasn't really far right and more of just a pure populist protest vote against Felipe González and the establishment. Same with Jesus Gil's GIL later on (who never ran on far right positions I think)

Of course, Vox is very different from all of those. I can't really think of any comparisons that would come without a flaw.

Also, while Fuerza Nueva was the first to get seats in a Spanish parliament, Vox is still technically the first to get seats in a regional assembly, as by the time of the first regional elections (1983) Fuerza Nueva was already dead.

Closest thing to the far right getting seats in a regional assembly thus far was Plataforma x Catalunya in 2010, who got 2.5% of the vote and would have needed 3% to get in. PxC actually had some sucess in local elections, but nothing beyond that, and when the secessionist movement started they quickly lost steam as people started voting based on that and not on immigration